Tuesday, April 2, 2013

INA ESSAY :My Advice to a New Nanny

INA Essay Submission: By Deirdre Bellows

My Advice to a New Nanny

I think the most important
thing for anyone thinking of becoming a nanny is that you know yourself and
that you stay true to yourself. You don’t
become a nanny to make money or to gain fame.
If you come into this career thinking that you’ll make a lot of money
being a “babysitter” or that you’ll become friends with famous people, you will burn out fast. You become a nanny because you have a natural
love for children and because you know the value of raising a compassionate and
confident child. You have to be able to
give selflessly for the best of the child.
You need to be alright with small achievements and, possibly, no
recognition. Smiles, hugs and a child’s
success have to be enough of a reward for you.

The other aspect of knowing
yourself and staying true to yourself is that this will be of immense help to
you in finding the right job. For me, I
need to work for a family who sees me as an integral part of their family. We need to work together as a team and they
need to respect and appreciate my experience and expertise. I can be a live-out or a live-in nanny, but I
need my own space. I could have accepted
higher paying jobs, but I wasn’t willing to compromise my basic needs in order
to make more money. I know that I can’t
share a bedroom with my charge(s). And,
I know that I’m not very good at being seen and not heard. You need to know yourself well enough to know
what you can and cannot compromise on to be the best nanny that you can be.

Being a career, professional
nanny has definitely helped me to know myself better. I take this self-knowledge into every
interview to insure that I don’t compromise in areas that are important to
me. This has made finding the perfect
fitting job much easier. In many ways
finding the perfect job for you is like finding the perfect person to share
your life with. There are things that
you are and are not willing to compromise on in a relationship. You don’t want to lose yourself in a
relationship and you don’t want to lose
yourself in your job. Being in a bad job
is like being in a bad marriage. Both
are very difficult to get out of and both can eat away at your confidence and
your sense of self.

Know yourself so that you
never lose yourself and so that you can be your best for a child who deserves
nothing less.

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